Thursday, May 28

go to some other blog right now, of go read about how bad the economy is

on foxnews.com, or go play online Scrabble, or go back over to Facebook,

where you were before you got here.

OK.

I have two bits to share.

The first one is great

the second one I can hardly comprehend.

Last night were invite-only awards at Middle School.

Hannah received a special award for excellence in English.

If she wasn't walking so dang fast back to her seat..... anyway.

Here she is with her very best best peeps,that are NOT swimmers.They were all being honored for one thing or another.If you've even been on her FB, you know for sureshe wasn't receiving this award for Spelling....but nonetheless, I was so proud of her for her accomplishment.

So this great news was trumped earlier in the day, by something I still

So one of my dearest rebellious girlfriends came into town last night.

And we planned on the next time she visited, we were both going to go for our

second one.

I have a few things in my life that consume a lot of my time and energy

so I thought maybe this one:

or even this one:

No. Seriously. I saw this picture of an angel about a year ago. As soon as I saw itI ripped it out of the magazine I was reading and have had it hung up on mybulletin board every since. I just knew this was the one.

So there's the back story to last nights adventure.

We ended up at Hart and Huntington at the Hard Rock

and afterward enjoyed each other's company over a fabulous dinner at Nobu.

I know I want one more.I know what it is already.

I'm looking for some takers on who will be accompanying mefor the next one.Anybody?

.........wearing the same two bathing suits to workout everyday for a month

..........textingallllll the way home from school, without saying one word to me

so on and so forth.

Through all of this, I proved my unequivocal love for her

nonetheless, yesterday.

I drove for 8 hours.

4 hours to California and 4 hours back home.

But it was worth every, stinking solitary minute in the car,

to take Hannah where she needed to be.

We made a trip to Anaheim for the Southern California

National Top 10 Swimming Awards.

To make an extremely long story short -

Top 10 swimmers are recognized within our Local Swimming Committee

in each age category........except 10 and unders, from the previous swim year.

They only recognize the top 3 swimmers in 10 and under group.

Hannah was #2 for her 100 Breaststroke.

Her relay team was also recognized for placing second for three separate relays.

I didn't think it was that big of a "thing" until we got there.

I felt honored to be in a room with all these athletes....one of which was my daughter.

These kids worked their butts off,

and deserved every bit of the attention they got.

Here is Hannah with her fellow relay swimmer Becca and the head coach of

the team, Coach Mike.

I couldn't be more happy for Hannah.

She makes me proud, not only for her hard, hard work, but the amount of confidence she exudes -strutting her stuff up on the stage in front of a room FULL of people,without a second look back!Love that about her!And besides the fact that my girl's got some killer calves...........go on.....click on the picture....,I know you want to look at them full size!And hey, anything that gets her in a dress.....well, that's got to be something special!

Mark Warkentin - open water Olympic Swimming championwas the speaker. He was very down to earth and gave the kids a lotof very good advice. He also gave autographs at the end of the banquet. So all crap is forgotten - as my daughter laid draped over the couchwith her head in her laptop, ignoring all around her, all her junk still in my car,dress and new shoes strewn on the floor all over her room,with the top of her pajama bottoms rolled down just close enoughto her hip bone to make me yell at her....